How JRD’s relief and revival plan gave India a push

On July 29, we celebrated the 114th birth anniversary of J R D Tata. Eighty years ago in 1938, JRD was appointed as chairman of the Tata Group, which he led for over 50 years, with an unrelenting quest for excellence. Many great Tata enterprises were born during his tenure, including Tata Motors, Tata Consultancy Services and Titan. The Sunday Times of London said this of him in 1951: “Highly strung, but tenacious of purpose, he works quickly and intensively. His passion for accuracy and interest in detail are often disturbing to colleagues and to his own health. He does not disguise his contempt for superficial knowledge and glib opinions.”

Yet, if there is one aspect of JRD that outweighs his drive for perfection and his significant business achievements, it is his abiding love for the country. Three stories bring this to life.

In 1944, JRD did something quite unique for a corporate leader. Along with other leading Indian industrialists, including G D Birla and Kasturbhai Lalbhai, he helped craft the Bombay Plan for India’s industrial growth. This was several years before the government’s own first five-year plan was conceived. The Bombay Plan created a storm, because it was ahead of its time, calling for massive investments in roads, railways and power.

On account of its radical proposals, the plan caused great discomfiture to nearly everyone — British rulers, leftists, Gandhians and many businessmen. The Economist magazine called the plan “a commendable piece of enterprise”. Many years later, President R Venkataraman recalled the Bombay Plan as one of JRD’s contributions to India. Most importantly, this initiative reflected JRD’s view that industry should play a key role in national development, a theme which has always been central to the Tata Group.

In October 1947, even as the partition of India led to waves of refugees coming into the country, J R D Tata wrote to the Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, suggesting that a national fund for relief and distress should be started in the name of the PM. He said that the Tata Group would be happy to make a substantial grant to such a fund. He also wrote, somewhat provocatively: “If you have no such intention, would you advise me as to what we should do?” However, Nehru agreed entirely with JRD’s suggestion: “After consulting my colleagues here, we have arrived at some decisions.” Thus was established the Prime Minister’s National Relief Fund.

A third story is J R D Tata’s founding of Tata Airlines in 1932. Driven by his own passion for aviation (he was the first to qualify as a pilot in India) and his belief that air transport would be critical for the nation’s future, he built an enterprise that placed the country firmly on the aviation map. Speaking in Mumbai after launching the airline, he said: “I want to express, perhaps unnecessarily, the unbounded confidence we have in the ultimate future of air transport in India.”

The then Director General of Civil Aviation wrote about this venture in The Times of India: “Scarcely anywhere else in the world was there an air service operating without support from the government. It could only be done by throwing on the operator the financial risk. Tata Sons were prepared to take that risk.”

All these three stories illustrate Bharat Ratna J R D Tata’s core belief that “no success or achievement in material terms is worthwhile unless it serves the needs or interests of the country”. Even as we mark the 150th anniversary of the Tata Group this year, we pay tribute to an icon who is truly a jewel of India.